Captain John Linzee
(1743-1798)
The
Gaspee Days Committee at www.gaspee.COM
is a civic-minded nonprofit organization that operates many community
events
in and around Pawtuxet Village, including the famous Gaspee Days Parade
each June. These events are all designed to commemorate the 1772 burning of
the hated British revenue schooner, HMS Gaspee, by Rhode Island
patriots as America's 'First Blow for Freedom' TM.
Our
historical research center, the Gaspee Virtual Archives at www.gaspee.ORG
, has presented these research notes as an attempt to gather further
information
on one who has been suspected of being associated with the the burning
of the Gaspee. Please e-mail your comments or further questions
to webmaster@gaspee.org.

Captain
John Linzee

At the bottom of this page, there is an excellent biography re-posted
in whole from the Linzee Family Association web site at: http://www.linzeefamilyassn.org/bios.htm#captainlinzee
to which little can be added. So as to be fair to this
organization, we have made the text of the biography unreadable on this
site, but retain it only so that our search engines can index the text.
So go now to the original site by clicking here: http://www.linzeefamilyassn.org/bios.htm#captainlinzee
Besides, only at the Linzee Family Association web site can you
see the portrait of Captain John Linzee.

Addendum
specific to the Gaspee Affair:

First, let's clear up any potential name confusion. Captain John Linzee was the
commander of the Royal Navy brigantine HMS Beaver, stationed in Rhode Island
waters at the time of the Gaspee affair. Benjamin
Lindsay was the captain of the packet sloop Hannah, which was being chased by
the HMS Gaspee when Lindsay
led it over the shallows of Namquid Point, causing the Gaspee to run aground.
Unfortunately, several early historical writers have intermixed the
names

While certainly not a ship-of-the-line, the brig Beaver was still a large and
imposing 3-masted complex naval warship, and she often was assigned
smaller vessels, called tenders, to carry out the more mundane tasks of
supply and liaison while in a hostile port. Both the schooner Gaspee and the sloop Swan were used as tenders to the Beaver at the time of the Gaspee
Incident in June 1772. But the Gaspee was uniquely adapted for use
as a chase boat when the occasion warranted, her fast rigging and
(relatively) shallow draft gave her speed and maneuverability that the
larger Beaver lacked. While
the Gaspee was sometimes
utilized as a tender to other, larger ships, it is important to realize
that the Gaspee was a
separate warship that could and did act independently for most of her
service life.

Immediately after the attack on the Gaspee,
it was Linzee's Beaver that
ultimately provided the refuge for the displaced
crew members of the Gaspee
upon their return from Pawtuxet, and later that summer provided a safe
haven for the wounded Lt. William Dudingston. It was presumably Capt.
Linzee that contracted with Samuel Aborn of Pawtuxet for the use of his
sloop to remove iron and salvageable remnants
of the burnt hull of the Gaspee.
Coincident with this operation, Aaron Briggs came aboard the Beaver, was put in chains and
threatened by Linzee with a whipping and hanging at the yardarm.
Linzee had become suspicious that this runaway servant had participated
in the attack on the Gaspee,
and coerced both Aaron's confession and the naming of several other
participants, including,

"John
Brown and Joseph Brown, principal men of the
town
of Providence; Simeon Potter of Bristol; Doctor Weeks, of
Warwick;
Richmond, of Providence."

All of this occurring within a few days of the attack, Capt. Linzee
must of been incited to protect the interests of Great Britain and to
extract revenge on the culprits. Perhaps his zeal in coercing the
confession from Briggs was a reflection of this. But, Linzee further
compounded the anger of colonists by refusing to deliver
Briggs over to Rhode Island officials, even when properly subpoenaed to
to so. We're not sure what, if any, specific orders Linzee
received on this
topic from his superior, Admiral Montagu, but it is likely that no one
in the Royal Navy was in a mood to be cooperative
with the local colonists they perceived as being in open rebellion.
As loyalist Massachusetts Colonial Governor Thomas
Hutchinson said,

Captain Linzee
can inform
you of the state of Rhode Island colony better than I can. So
daring
an insult as burning the King's schooner, by people who are as well
known
as any who were concerned in the last rebellion and yet cannot be
prosecuted,
will certainly rouse the British lion, which has been asleep these four
or five years. Admiral Montague
says that Lord Sandwich will never
leave
pursuing the colony, until it is disenfranchised. If it is passed
over, the other colonies will follow the example.

Due to Linzee's missteps, Aaron's 'confession' and naming of
names was ultimately thrown out by even the loyalist Gaspee Commission
of Inquiry as useless testimony. Capt. John Linzee was roundly
skewered by the Commissioners'
Report to the King:

In July following, a
warrant was
granted for the apprehending one Aaron Briggs, a negro, then on board
your
Majesty's ship the Beaver, commanded by Capt. Linzee, for being
concerned
in burning the Gaspee and wounding the Lieutenant. The same was
delivered
to a sheriff, who, after making his business known, was refused
admittance
into said ship, but the captain was not then on board. Very soon after
such refusal the captain was informed of said warrant and requested to
deliver up the negro, whom he acknowledged was on board, but treated
the
civil authority in a most contemptuous and unjustifiable manner.

In the political sphere of what was, after all, the prelude to the
American Revolution, the Rhode Island courts were also of the opinion
that any testimony from Aaron Briggs was fatally tainted by Linzee's
initial coercion. It is intersting to ponder the irony that Capt.
John Linzee, the man whose actions so contributed to the failure of the
Gaspee Commission of Inquiry, ultimately married an American, settled
in America, and was buried in America.

Captain John Linzee
was born on March 25, 1743 at Kingston, Portsea, Hants, England.
He joined the Royal Navy and rose to the rank of captain at the age of
27. In 1769, he sailed to America as part of the British effort
to maintain order in the increasingly demonstrative town of
Boston. He became friends with a number of local Bostonians,
including the merchant John Rowe, for whom Rowe’s Wharf is named.
Captain Linzee dined often at Mr. Rowe’s home, and it was there he met
Susannah Inman, daughter of Ralph and Susannah (Speakman) Inman (Mr.
Inman was a loyalist whose home in Cambridge was seized by colonials in
1776 and used as the headquarters of General Israel Putnam). Captain
Linzee and Susannah were married on September 1, 1772.

During his initial
tour of duty in America, Captain Linzee was responsible for patrolling
the waters off the New England coast to detect, and in certain cases
punish, those colonists who attempted to evade the customs and tariff
laws passed by Parliament. These “taxes” were passed in order to repay
part of the cost for the recently ended French and Indian War.
The British felt justified in exacting some recompense for, in their
view, protecting and defending the colonies against French and Indian
attacks. The colonials, on the other hand, generally took the view that
Britain cared little for the lives of Americans and had fought the last
war only to defend her own territorial and economic interests.

In March, 1772,
while commanding the British sloop of war Beaver, Linzee’s tender, the
Gaspee, pursued an alleged “illicit trader.” During the chase, however,
she became stuck on a sandbar seven miles south of Providence off
Namquit Point, now called Gaspee Point in memoriam to the unfortunate
ship. That evening a number of Providence’s colonials sailed out
to the Gaspee and attacked it, wounding a number of her crew and
burning the schooner until it sank. Captain Linzee managed to
capture one of the culprits, who proceeded to “name names” of some of
the other participants. The local colonial authorities demanded
possession of the captive to rehabilitate his confession. When
Captain Linzee refused their request, he was temporarily arrested by
the civil authorities in Boston. The “Gaspee Incident” took its
place as one of the ever-increasing number of violent conflicts between
colonialists and British forces in and around Boston that led to the
inevitable boiling point at Lexington.

Several months after
the Gaspee Incident, Captain Linzee returned to England where he and
his wife remained until his return to Boston on April 16, 1775.
In his diary entry of April 16th, the merchant John Rowe
records their arrival: “After dinner I went down to Clark’s Wharf to
meet Captain Linzee and Sucky, who arrived from Spit Head and Falmouth
in the Falcon sloop. I brought them home and their little son
Samuel Linzee.”

The very next entry
in the diary is dated April 19th and records the first
battle of the American Revolution: “Last night the Grenadiers and light
companies belonging to the several regiments in this town were ferry’d
over Charles River and landed on Phipps farm in Cambridge, from whence
they proceeded on their way to Concord, but they arrived early this
day. On their march they had a skirmish with some country people
at Lexington. The First Brigade commanded by Lord Percy with two
pieces of artillery, set off from this town this morning about 10
o’clock as a reinforcement, which with the Grenadiers and light
infantry made about 1800 men. The people in the country had
notice of this movement early in the night. Alarm guns were fired
thro’ the country and expresses sent off to the different towns so that
very early this morning large numbers from all parts of the country
were assembled. A general battle ensued, which from what I can
learn, was supported with great spirit on both sides and continued
until the King’s troops got back to Charles Town, which was near
sunset. Numbers are killed and wounded on both sides.
Captain Linzee and Captain Collins and two small armed vessels were
ordered up Charles River to bring off the troops to Boston, but Lord
Percy and General Smith thought proper to encamp on Bunker’s Hill this
night. This unhappy affair is a shocking introduction to all the
miseries of a civil war.”

The very next night
the diary records that Captain Linzee had his own armed
engagement. “This night some people, about 200, attacked Captain
Linzee in the armed schooner a little below Cambridge Bridge. He
gave them a warm reception so that they thought proper to retreat with
a loss of some men. ‘Tis said many thousands of country people
are at Roxbury and in the neighborhood. The people in town are
alarmed and the entrenchments on Boston Neck double guarded. Mrs.
Linzee dined at the Admiral’s.”

The Battle of Bunker (Breed's) Hill

With the beginning
of hostilities, troop deployment became critical. Dorchester
Heights commanded a view of Boston on the south, and Bunker Hill in
Charleston controlled Boston on the north with a clear view of Boston
Harbor. General Gage appeared determined to occupy both, and by
mid June Generals Howe, Burgoyne and Clinton had already reached Boston
with reinforcements. As such, the colonialists held a “secret
call to arms” meeting on Cambridge Common on June 16th, and
the Committee of Safety decided to occupy Bunker Hill before General
Gage. Thus, during the late evening of June 16th and
the early morning of the 17th, approximately 1500 men under
the leadership of Colonel William Prescott began to construct the
“redoubt.” With the assistance of Samuel Gridley, an engineer,
the fort was constructed on the smaller (and nearer to the British
troops) Breed’s Hill so that it could not be used as a natural barrier
to protect oncoming British infantry. Five British ships stood
guard in the harbor that night, one of which was the Falcon commanded
by Captain John Linzee. The redoubt was relatively close to the water’s
edge, and three times that night Colonel Prescott silently walked to
that edge to hear the “all’s well” of the night watchman on the war
ships in the harbor.

Not until 4:00 a.m.,
with the first light of day, was the presence of the American force
discovered by crewmen on the Falcon and another British sloop, the
Lively. They immediately fired, and the battle had begun.
It took the British three separate attacks by infantry before they
overcame the much smaller American force and then only because the
Americans had literally run out of ammunition (Prescott’s order not to
shoot “until you see the whites of their eyes” was said in stark
recognition of his limited supply). Just before the battle, Major
General Joseph Warren had joined the American force as an example that
colonial leaders were willing to share the dangers of battle.
Colonel Prescott offered his command, but General Warren refused.
At the end of the third and final British assault, and just before the
Americans began their retreat, General Warren was killed.

As a result of the
American stand at Breed’s Hill and the colonials’ ability to hold their
own in a pitched battle against the world’s foremost fighting force,
Benjamin Franklin could write to a friend of his in London, “Americans
will fight; England has lost her colonies forever.”

General Gage
required provisions for his troops. For the next few years Captain
Linzee and the Falcon were assigned the duty of foraging and seizing
food and materials from the locals along the New England coast from
Maine to New York to help feed and supply the British troops.
After the French joined the war, Captain Linzee participated in a
number of naval engagements against the French Admirals D’Estaing and
DeGrasse. During one such naval engagement on the Delaware River
in 1777, his wife Susannah was on board during the action.

Captain Linzee
returned to England in 1779 and continued his service in the Royal Navy
as commander of the Pearl and then the Penelope. On September 9,
1790, he sailed into Boston Harbor and fired, in all probability, the
first salute to the flag of the United States of America by a British
commander in New England waters. When Susannah died in October of
1792 at age 38, he resigned from the British Navy and returned to
America to settle permanently.

Captain John Linzee
died on October 8, 1798, at his home in Milton, Massachusetts, at age
56. Per his request, he was buried with his wife in the old
Trinity Church, Boston.